title: G-quadruplexes as tools for synthetic biology.
abstract: With the potential to engineer biological systems, synthetic biology is an emerging field that combines various disciplines of sciences. It encompasses combinations of DNA, RNA and protein modules for constructing desired systems and the "rewiring" of existing signalling networks. Despite recent advances, this field still lags behind in the artificial reconstruction of cellular processes, and thus demands new modules and switches to create "genetic circuits". The widely characterised noncanonical nucleic acid secondary structures, G-quadruplexes are promising candidates to be used as biological modules in synthetic biology. Structural plasticity and functional versatility are significant G-quadruplex traits for its integration into a biological system and for diverse applications in synthetic circuits.
authors.affiliation: Proteomics and Structural Biology Unit, CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Mall Road, Delhi 110007 (India).
authors.forename: Prachi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Agarwala
authors.forename: Satyaprakash
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pandey
authors.forename: Souvik
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maiti
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D021881:DNA, Catalytic / Q000378:metabolism; D054856:G-Quadruplexes; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D012313:RNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D058615:Synthetic Biology
chemical_list: D021881:DNA, Catalytic; D012313:RNA; D004247:DNA
keywords: G-quadruplexes; ribozymes; synthetic biology; topology; zipcodes